Annual Report Summary 2015

ANNUAL REPORT 2015 | 11
New project locations for 2014/15
with earthquake hot zones
4 Schools
2 Schools
1 School
+
Women’s Group
1 School
1 School
OUR RESPONSE
Given these imperatives, we decided to focus on three core areas.
Health
When families are living in temporary shelters, disruption to
normal hygiene and sanitation practices increases the risk
of disease. Perhaps the greatest risk comes from drinking
contaminated water, especially during the monsoon season
when rains flush contaminants into the water supply.
Our solution was to commission the installation of a slow sand
water filtration system at three school so children would have
access to safe drinking water. The filters have been design
specifically for use in rural Nepal and it represents, to the best
of our knowledge, the first non-chemical and sustainable
medium size (500 L) water treatment solution of its type to
be installed as a response to lowering the risk of disease in
earthquake affected areas
Reconstruction
Given the impending monsoons and the need to wait for
a formal reconstruction policy to be developed, we were
restricted in what we were able to achieve in terms of our
efforts to help rebuild.
We took two approaches which depended on the individual
needs of the schools and what was able to be achieved at the
schools. Since we could not realistically provide a program
of rebuilding entire classrooms, we decided to help as many
schools as we could with roofing material and steel trusses
that would be the framework for further construction efforts
after the monsoons.
1. We provided Corrugated Iron Sheets (CGIS) to a number
of schools that were used as roofing for TLCs or for
existing permanent but damaged buildings. The major
effort of the government, NGOs, and INGOs in the
Gorkha District at the time we arrived was in providing
either CGIS to communities for housing, or a cash
equivalent that families could use for other purposes.
2. During our survey of the schools, we found that classrooms
constructed from brick or stones with no reinforcement
suffered from serious damage or were totally destroyed.
Reinforced solid concrete classrooms were relatively
untouched. Classrooms built with steel structures, or
trusses that consisted of a steel frame and CGIS roofing
remained intact, but the brick/stone that were used for
the walls were damaged.
Based on our observations and discussions with our Nepal team,
the communities we assisted and the District Education Office,
we decided that providing steel trusses and CGIS roofing for
the equivalent of six classrooms was a solid long-term solution
and achievable given our budget and the aforementioned
constraints.